06 Guigal ‘Lieu Dit’ rouge [St Joseph] decanted for 3 hours, served cool, not much sediment. 13% abv. Lovely bouquet of sage, mint, sausage, fennel. Really impressive on the nose. Dark purplish hue, no lightening on the edges yet. Long zesty blackberry finish. 30-40 seconds in length, with mineralite and ham flavors. Whatever oak treatment this might get seems to have gotten absorbed by now. It’s a wine that can appeal to a wine geek, but is also polished enough to be a popular, food friendly wine for anyone. My SO who normally doesn’t like Northern Rhones at all enjoyed this, as an example of that. My first experience with one of Guigal’s estate/single vineyard St Joes, and I loved it. Solid A wine for me.
PS: beautiful label, from the artist who makes the EU’s currency supposedly
But that’s odd; I see that it’s a St. Joseph but what’s the lieu-dit? Isn’t the term supposed to refer to a named place, a vineyard with an agreed-upon name (but not a premier or grand cru if the appellation has those)? What’s the name? Where’s the dit?
I’ve had lots of lieu-dit wines, particularly (only?) from Burgundy, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the phrase lieu-dit on a label.
In this case the lieu-dit is Saint Joseph. It is stated like this on the label to separate from the “regular” Saint Joseph bottling.
There are other lieux-dit in St Joseph, like Paradis or Montagnon. In these cases writing “St Joseph Paradis” on the label is fine, but writing “St Joseph Saint Joseph” would be a bit awkward. So they keep the lieu-dit mention in this specific case.
Oftentimes the names you see on a wine label, when it’s not a Grand Cru or the name of the grand-parents etc., will be the lieu-dit name.
So Guigal bottles a St. Joseph, a St. Joseph lieu-dit St. Joseph, and a St. Joseph Vignes de l’Hospice. I can see the possibility of a bit of market confusion there.
The regular St. Joseph has the traditional kind of light brown/tan Guigal label.
The Lieu-Dit looks like crazy money. Pink and orange lines delinate the St. Joseph hillsides, and the label is dominated by what I assume is an illustration of Saint Joseph himself.
The Vignes de L’Hospice label shows an illustration of the vineyard, which IIRC is very similar to Hermitage’s soil composition.
There are images at each of these pages if you want to have your own look!
Intro St. Joseph is a middleweight red where I usually get the secondary olive and spice notes that make something more North Rhone and Syrah. There are other estate-bottled wines I like better, but this is a reliable wine that can often be found in areas with fewer specialty importer options. The Lieu-Dit is more structured and a little richer, with more intensity to the secondary flavors. The Hospice, when I have had it, has always struck me as more Rich Syrah and less North Rhone Secondary notes, though very good in that idiom. I would rather have the Lieu-Dit, myself.
Andrew, thanks for the help (yes, the wines not the labels!).
Jim, thanks for the descriptions. I have the '04 and '05 Vignes de l’Hospice but haven’t tried either yet; correctly or not, I imagine a bit of Guigal oakiness that might need some more time to disappear.
Oops, I told a lie; I looked it up and I have had the '04 Hospice, back in 2009. I wrote that it was “young, purple, rich, somewhat oaky, a bit Southern Rhône-y; better [I think I meant more N. Rhône Syrah typical] on 2nd night”.
I did like it more that a bottle of Chave’s 2004 estate St. Joseph that I had in 2010. However, if Guigal’s 2005 is anything near as good as Chave’s 2005 St. Joseph, I’ll be a happy man.
![[rofl.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/a/a7452fcd8e675af869f8da01174474a545b03944.gif "rofl"){kind=small}
at myself. Yes, you are probably right.